


The Le Roi Job

by sophiahelix



Series: Tumblr Prompts [12]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Aliens, Alternate Universe - Corporate, Alternate Universe - Space, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-24
Updated: 2018-01-24
Packaged: 2019-03-08 18:22:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13463922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix
Summary: To his right, Yuuri’s hunched over his rig, older but still serviceable, and a marvel in his hands. One is busy over a touch interface, typing in commands, and the other works a series of handles and gears in turn. Yuuri’s gaze is firmly fixed on his own small display screen, the blue and purple lights flickering over his upturned face.To Victor’s left, Yuri is drenched in white light. He's strapped into his own more modern rig, viewscreen goggles over his eyes, and he's upside down now, spinning and diving, swimming through invisible lines of code. One hand swipes impatiently, and he kicks off, righting himself for a moment before turning again.Victor glances up at the main screen, displaying the countdown in flashing numbers. “Two more minutes before the detection net activates.”





	The Le Roi Job

**Author's Note:**

> From the “make it work” 3 AUs challenge — I was prompted aliens, pirates, and corporate setting. Obviously data piracy in space was the only way.
> 
> (Note: I have never seen an episode of Leverage but shamelessly stole its episode naming convention)

“How much longer?” Victor asks, patiently. His top two programmers don't answer him.

Well, he calls them his top two, but the truth is they're the only two programmers left. Long hours, dangerous working conditions, and the latest string of setbacks have driven off the rest, and Victor’s just lucky these two have their own reasons for staying with Nikiforov Limited.

They're not really programmers either, but that's the official term. _Data pirates_ is what they'd be called, in less polite company.

Right now the company is just the three of them, alone in this uninhabited quadrant. Victor walks down the central deck of his small ship, powered-down engines humming softly around him, hands tucked behind his back. Numbers and images flash on the screens above him, as the programmers race through the code of Le Roi Enterprises’s databank, looking for the formula for the still-unreleased King engine.

To his right, Yuuri’s hunched over his rig, older but still serviceable, and a marvel in his hands. One is busy over a touch interface, typing in commands, and the other works a series of handles and gears in turn. Yuuri’s gaze is firmly fixed on his own small display screen, the blue and purple lights flickering over his upturned face.

To Victor’s left, Yuri is drenched in white light. He's strapped into his own more modern rig, viewscreen goggles over his eyes, and he's upside down now, spinning and diving, swimming through invisible lines of code. One hand swipes impatiently, and he kicks off, righting himself for a moment before turning again.

Victor glances up at the main screen, displaying the countdown in flashing numbers. “Two more minutes before the detection net activates.”

Yuuri lets out a _hah_ , hunching over his interface more and squinting harder. Yuri kicks and spins again, heading off in a different direction of virtual space. Victor chews his own lip.

Leroy stole technical formulas from him two times last cycle, and tried to steal three more. This is only the second attempt Victor’s made on Leroy this cycle, but where he tries he always succeeds. It's how business is done. The King engine is the biggest thing Le Roi Enterprises has ever come out with, and Victor’s cheaper, improved duplication of it might be the product that turns Nikiforov Limited around, bringing back the glory days.

And besides, if always feels good to steal from Yvverr companies. The war is long decided, since colonization began generations ago, but Victor was raised to get one over on the invaders whenever he could.

“One minute,” he says, a warning tone in his voice.

“Left!” Yuuri shouts, suddenly. “Up and left, Yuri.”

Yuri dives up. His strong, slender legs kick, in the tight silver suit he wears in the rig, and his pale hand reaches up.

“That's it,” Yuuri says, tensely. “Feed it the false code block — right, wait for the ping — got it!”

Victor turns his head to see schema flash up on the screen for a moment, clustered equations layered over outlines of engine parts, and then they disappear, safe into his own satellite databases, dispersed in chunks throughout the system. He’ll assemble them later, when they've decoupled from the Le Roi port and returned home.

Just then, warning sirens scream, and all the lights on the deck flash red. Victor springs into action, grabbing the navigation wheel and pushing buttons. His ship comes back to life, giving off the energy field that would have alerted security before, and he hastily un-docks, bumping into the Le Roi datahub satellite once before he backs out.

“Someone's driving is getting sloppy,” Yuri says, snidely.

“Hush,” Victor says, entering the complicated pattern of touches and swipes that engages the hyperdrive. “Hold on.”

The deck lights turn green, and then that strange, indescribable luminescence as space and time warp around them, giving the sensation of incredible speed while they're standing still. Victor catches his breath, fighting the feeling that his own body has turned inside out, and disengages the drive, slowing the ship down as they appear in another quadrant of the system, orbiting a neutral planet.

“Whew,” Yuuri says. Victor turns to see him slump back in his seat, hands tucked behind his head. He looks exhausted, hair sweaty, but he's grinning. “Cut that one close.”

On the other side of the walkway, Yuri’s upright again, still suspended in his rig. He takes his viewscreen goggles off and shakes his head, letting his forehead feelers uncurl. He blinks, first his cloudy inner eyelids and then his thick outer ones, and a ripple of reddish color sweeps over his iridescent skin. 

He turns to Yuuri and snaps, “If you hadn't spent all that time in the wrong section of the database, it would have been over quicker.”

Yuuri just keeps grinning. “I left some breadcrumbs for next time. There was an interesting project in progress we might want to check back on.”

“Breadcrumbs?” Yuri shakes his head, delicate feelers waving. “I'll never understand why your species speaks half in allusions to your own stupid literature.”

Victor crosses the deck to them, his own feelers relaxing at last, and rubs at the soft gill slits on the sides of his throat. They have to keep the air mix on the ship with a higher oxygen content than he'd like, for Yuuri’s sake. A long soak in the ammonia pool is going to feel wonderful after all this, if he can beat Yuri there. 

He puts a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, and then bends down to drop his forehead against the top of Yuuri’s head, breathing in his emotions. Strain and worry, but a giddy triumph, too. He thinks Yuuri _likes_ cutting it close.

“Well done,” Victor says, straightening up. “Speaking of breadcrumbs, dinner’s on me.”

“You'd better not mean the nutrition cubes in the back of the fridge,” Yuri grumbles.

Yuuri’s still smiling up at him, softer now. “This is going to change everything for us, right?”

“Yes,” Victor says, squeezing his shoulder. “Everything.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on Tumblr: sophia-helix


End file.
